Puffball
by sierra.steinbrecher
Summary: Ed is never sleeping with his hair in a braid again.


Ed did NOT want to get out of bed. Seriously, he'd spent all of last night trudging around in the rain, because he'd gotten lost. Thank goodness his room had a decent shower. He glanced at the clock again. 12:30. He had a meeting at 1:00, but that was still 30 minutes away. He'd just take a few more minutes…

When the blond woke up again, it was 1:18. He practically jumped out of his bed. _Crap! Hawkeye's gonna have my hide for this! _He stripped in seconds threw on his black clothes and red coat, and hurried out the door. _If I run, I should make it to the office in less than 15 minutes. Maybe I'll just get shot at this time. _

As he ran outside of the hotel and headed down the sidewalk, the wind picked up and blew some of his hair across his face. _Crap. My braid must have come undone while I was sleeping, and I don't have time to braid it again. _Resigned, he pulled the barely-hanging-on hair tie out of his hair and combed it back into a high ponytail with his fingers, snapping the tie into place. At least he wasn't totally disheveled now. Hair now firmly tied out of the way, he shot down the sidewalk towards Command.

When he passed through the gates, he heard sniggering. Edward spared a second to look back and saw that one of the guards was shaking slightly. _Oh, great. Everyone's making fun of the short guy today. "_Are you laughing at me?!"

"The guard instantly straightened up. "No sir!"

Edward eyed him skeptically before deciding to let it slide since the guy was obviously terrified of him now. Must be a new recruit. He whipped around, coat flying dramatically behind him –_Oh, he loved that!- _and continued up the lawn without giving it another thought.

Too bad the various laughing noises kicked in as soon as Ed entered the building. He couldn't just stare everyone down though, that would make him even later, so instead he simply quickened his pace and prepared a good rant on how Mustang should stop spreading around those short jokes.

Raising his metal foot, Ed kicked his way into the room and strode in, hands stuffed in his pockets. Havoc was the first to start.

Thankfully, the man hadn't been smoking so his chuckling was the only thing he choked on as he stared at the rather disgruntled alchemist. He quickly got control of himself, though, and asked, "How are ya, Boss?"

"I'm fine." _Or at least I would be if everyone would stop laughing at me._ Ed was broken out of his brooding by Falman.

This was a surprise. Out of all Mustang's gang, he was usually the most self-controlled, acting as if nothing going on around him affected him at all. Even Hawkeye occasionally gave in and put a bullet through the wall to shut them all up, but Falman never seemed to have a problem. So naturally Ed thought things were a little unusual, well more unusual than normal, when the man started giggling. He tried to hide it, honestly he did. But the tremors that shook his desk chair were a bit of a giveaway.

Just as Ed was about to blow up at the poor man, Roy asked from the doorway to his office, "What's so funny?"

He looked at Ed for an explanation and immediately doubled over. With a hand on the doorframe to prop himself up, Mustang laughed at the furious teenager in front of him. That was the last straw for Edward.

"This is not funny, you snap happy idiot?"

In response, Mustang made a beckoning gesture toward the interior of his personal office. Riza stepped out, took one look at the situation-Havoc barely keeping a straight face, Falman now shaking his desk as well as his chair, Mustang bent double, and Edward. She strode forward, took the now just confused teen by the forearm, and led him to the nearest bathroom.

Ed looked in the mirror and immediately wanted to punch it.

It was his hair.

His hair was a giant puffball at the back of his head and it was so big that the edges surrounded his face, making him look like his head was buried in a fluffy yellow pillow. He was going to kill the person who had done this to him. Then the rage cleared as he realized what had happened.

Last night, his hair had been wet. He had braided it and then left it in for the night. He'd taken it out this morning, not checking in a mirror first, and then tied it into a ponytail. His shoulders drooped at his own stupidity, and he slowly walked out of the bathroom.

The minute he was out of hearing range, Riza collapsed in a fit of giggles.

**This actually does happen to people with long hair, and most of the time it looks pretty good. Will someone please draw this so I can post a pic as the cover?**

**I love reviews, always have, always will.**


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